That the service of the sailors will be set up to sale by auction, and that the merchants will bid against the government, is incontestable; nor is there any doubt that they will be able to offer the highest price, because they will take care to repay themselves by raising the value of their goods.  Thus, without some restraint upon the merchants, our enemies, who are not debarred by their form of government from any method which policy can invent, or absolute power put in execution, will preclude all our designs, and set at defiance a nation superiour to themselves.

Sir John BARNARD then said:—­Sir, I think myself obliged by my duty to my country, and by my gratitude to those by whose industry we are enriched, and by whose courage we are defended, to make, once more, a declaration, not against particular clauses, not against single circumstances, but against the whole bill; a bill unjust and oppressive, absurd and ridiculous; a bill to harass the industrious and distress the honest, to puzzle the wise and add power to the cruel; a bill which cannot be read without astonishment, nor passed without the violation of our constitution, and an equal disregard of policy and humanity.

All these assertions will need to be proved only by a bare perusal of this hateful bill, by which the meanest, the most worthless reptile, exalted to a petty office by serving a wretch only superiour to him in fortune, is enabled to flush his authority by tyrannising over those who every hour deserve the publick acknowledgments of the community; to intrude upon the retreats of brave men, fatigued and exhausted by honest industry, to drag them out with all the wantonness of grovelling authority, and chain them to the oar without a moment’s respite, or perhaps oblige them to purchase, with the gains of a dangerous voyage, or the plunder of an enemy lately conquered, a short interval to settle their affairs, or bid their children farewell.

Let any gentleman in this house, let those, sir, who now sit at ease, projecting laws of oppression, and conferring upon their own slaves such licentious authority, pause a few moments, and imagine themselves exposed to the same hardships by a power superiour to their own; let them conceive themselves torn from the tenderness and caresses of their families by midnight irruptions, dragged in triumph through the streets by a despicable officer, and placed under the command of those by whom they have, perhaps, been already oppressed and insulted.  Why should we imagine that the race of men for whom those cruelties are preparing, have less sensibility than ourselves?  Why should we believe that they will suffer without complaint, and be injured without resentment?  Why should we conceive that they will not at once deliver themselves, and punish their oppressors, by deserting that country where they are considered as felons, and laying hold on those rewards and privileges which no other government will deny them?